6 replies to this topic

[CoffeeKitty]

testing this has been kind of difficult and i haven't met anyone who actually knows how this works;

when you fire a laser, is there any frontloaded damage?

and whats the point of heavy lasers? they don't seem to outperform ER or Pulse in any field, any help is appreciated

i love the look and sound of heavy lasers so i want to do a build around them since i kind of just enjoy them but no matter what i try i just find that using ER or pulses would be better in the situation im going for, they're just too hot and bulky and slow to fit

Edited by CoffeeKitty, 29 January 2019 - 12:09 AM.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

Laser Damage is delivered over their full burntime. So, not frontloaded.
Heavy Lasers deliver the highest DMG/ton. With the drawbacks of lower range, longer burntime, longer cooldown and more heat.

[PhoenixFire55]

CoffeeKitty, on 28 January 2019 - 11:59 PM, said:

testing this has been kind of difficult and i haven't met anyone who actually knows how this works;

when you fire a laser, is there any frontloaded damage?

No. The entire game is separated into small time intervals (server ticks). Each tick server changes the position of all objects based on their speed and position in the previous tick. It goes for both mechs and weapons such as missiles and ballistics (except MGs). Laser damage is calculated same way. The entire burn is also divided into ticks, each having an equal part of the full laser damage. If during a particular server tick you happen to have your laser pointed at the enemy and firing, then that part of the damage is going to be applied to the enemy. If in the next tick your laser isn't pointed at the enemy anymore, then next part of the damage is going to miss. The exact rate of server ticks as well as into how many parts laser burns are separated is of course unknown to the general public. There also have been tests to determine whether there is any uneven distribution of laser damage between early and late ticks, but they have been inconclusive. Currently there is no evidence to suggest lasers display any kind of frontloaded behavior.

[CoffeeKitty]

thanks for the quick responses, it always has felt like the "first tick" of lasers do the most damage, because like if i alpha vomit on somone as im dragging my crosshair to them (say it's RIGHT behind them) it does really little damage, but if i wait and overaim a bit but start as it hits them so the first tick is on, it seems to do a LOT more damage, this might just be because of server lag?

[PhoenixFire55]

CoffeeKitty, on 29 January 2019 - 12:49 AM, said:

thanks for the quick responses, it always has felt like the "first tick" of lasers do the most damage, because like if i alpha vomit on somone as im dragging my crosshair to them (say it's RIGHT behind them) it does really little damage, but if i wait and overaim a bit but start as it hits them so the first tick is on, it seems to do a LOT more damage, this might just be because of server lag?

Not 'lag' per se, simply latency between you and server and your target and server. There is a (supposedly) complicated algorithm called 'Host State Rewind' that is responsible for compensating that. I.e. if on your screen you hit something, then server would know and (maybe, hopefull) apply the damage instead of making it miss due to latency. However, since we don't know how exactly it works it is hard to attribute certain behaviors to HSR and/or latency issues.

Other thing to keep in mind is that when you shoot someone with lasers he is most likely to start spreading the damage during the laser burn, but not right away, i.e. within human reaction time interval from when you press the fire button your damage would most likely be applied to a non-twisting target, while after that, to a target that actively 'rolls' the damage. When damage spreads over several components it created the illusion that its actually less damage, plus there are always more hit registration issues on a moving target.

[CoffeeKitty]

Aidan Crenshaw, on 29 January 2019 - 12:24 AM, said:

Heavy Lasers deliver the highest DMG/ton. With the drawbacks of lower range, longer burntime, longer cooldown and more heat.

i just find that being the ONLY thing they have, being higher damage per ton, but i can't think of a single situation in which you'd be worried about tonnage over slot space And you were also in a mech that had higher face time capability; smaller mechs worry more about tonnage than space but they can't risk having as much time on target as larger mechs can.

So while smaller mechs CAN fit heavy lasers, they can't also fit the heatsinks needed and facetank as long, and while larger mechs can have the heat, they don't have the space.

i've tried fitting heavies on my EBJ, timber wolf, direwolf, MCII, MAD-IIC, hellbringer,

kitfox (this actually almost worked lol, it just has heat problems where on tourmaline i could fire twice and it would take over 30 seconds to reset to heat 0, but ERLL is more consistent damage, less heat issues and better range+facetime)

nova (i want this to work so desperately but er med or med pulse is so much more consistent, heavy smalls works really well though for alphas)

seriously i tried this on basically every mech i own extensively, i can NOT get heavy lasers to work well (especially HLL), i always end up either out of space or at a place where my DPS is worse, my DPH is worse, my required time on target is worse, and its just so ****.

And yet i still am using them on some of my mechs because they're actually really fun, but it it pisses me off that im lucky to get 300 damage a match using them on my EBJ or HBR, but when i switch to ER large stacking, or LPL + ERML vomit, i suddenly am doing 1200 damage a match consistently :l

I really want some help with this lol

Edited by CoffeeKitty, 29 January 2019 - 01:22 AM.

[Roland09]

Well, if you constantly do 1200 damage in a QP match with whatever setup, you probably should not change anything at all. (You are talking about QP, are you not?)

On the other hand, HLL seem to sync pretty well with ER-ML. You could put 2 HLL and 3 ER-ML on a Hellbringer Prime, max armour and fill the remaining tonnage with heat sinks and a small targeting computer. Try it sometime.